Tumbling Dice
by problematiquefave
Summary: They say curiosity killed the cat — good thing Fenrir Greyback is a wolf and not a cat instead then, hn? Set during the first war; an eighteen year old Remus Lupin goes undercover in a slightly different way than expected to learn just what Fenrir Greyback is up to.
1. Chapter 1

This story was written for Fire the Canon's 100 Word Prompt Collection Challenge over on the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges forum. My claim is Fenrir Greyback and Remus Lupin. This story _is_ meant to be interconnected.

Specific prompt used for this chapter was **74\. records**.

Word count: 893

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There's this little shop in Cardiff – it's dark even in the middle of the day, the air is dry, and it smells like mothballs but he likes it nonetheless. He likes the soft, weathered feel of used records. The fact it never charges more than fifty pence for a record is a bonus too, and that the shopkeeper keeps his nose buried in old magazines and doesn't bother or give Fenrir odd looks is the icing on the cake. Maybe there are other shops out there like this one, closer to home or closer to the action, but he's content with this little one in Cardiff. He's content to keep coming back here over and over to dig through the old records, picking through everything from Eric Clapton to the Stones and the Beatles, Pink Floyd and the Troggs, and to his personal favourites: the Kinks and Sex Pistols

Maybe one of the nicest things about that little place in Cardiff – Hardy's – is that when he goes there, he's free from all the cack of his everyday life. There he doesn't have to deal with the Death Eaters who look at him some like rabid dog or his drooling, simpering pack members who look at him like he shits gold. Not to sound ungrateful but he's surrounded by _idiots_ and Hardy's is one of his few escapes. It even gives him an escape when he's not in the shop; he can take his records to his room, slam the door behind him, and drown out all the irritants with the music.

If he was a religious man, he'd thank God for this blessing. But he's not and he's pretty sure that even if he was, God wouldn't listen to him – not with the blood on every inch of his skin and soul, and not with the amount of people he's sent into God's arms. Not with how he'd rather die than repent. He might have his depths but Fenrir is still a _bad_ man.

A perfect example of it all is August 16th, 1978; he's down at Hardy's after a not-so-good day, picking through the records in the darkened shop, drinking in the stale air. The shopkeeper – who is not Hardy actually – is doing a decade old word-search at the front counter, ignoring the wild-looking man flipping through the records.

That morning he'd woken up on the wrong side of a cold bed, specifically remembering taking Varsha back with him the evening before; upon dressing and heading out for breakfast, Fletcher caught him and said vaguely that there was someone wanting to see him – it took prodding to get out of the idiot that it was a Death Eater who'd Fletcher had left waiting for over an hour. The Death Eater bitched him out before giving him his orders for the next full moon, muttering 'stupid mutts' before apparating away. After that, he found that no one had bothered saving him breakfast (even though he was their fucking _alpha_ ) and were all too busy playing poker to be arsed with listening to him. His escape to the little shop had more than likely saved someone's life, or at least their hide.

His fingers brushed over the different records, lazily flipping through them; his eyes took in the Yardbirds, Cream, the Zombies, and far too many Beatles albums for his taste (they were okay – nothing special). Fenrir flitted from one table to the next, looking through each of them with too much interest for a person who was here to just browse. He paused at the cassette players, looking one over and running his hands across it as he debated whether it'd be worth the pounds. He almost didn't notice the chime of the bell above the door – _almost_.

He looked up, instantly taking in and sizing up the person who'd entered. It was a lanky boy; couldn't be older than eighteen with dust-coloured brown hair and muddy brown eyes. He was a sickly pale and almost completely consumed by the army green duffle coat he wore but there was one thing that caught him off-guard. _The scars_. There was one along the bridge of his nose and another running vertical across his lips; he could tell by how they'd faded to a silvery-colour that they were old and yet they were the most striking feature on the boy, probably because of how starkly they contrasted with his Eton schoolboy look. If it weren't for those scars, he would've been completely unremarkable and yet they were there and they had caught Fenrir's attention.

The boy's eyes met his for a brief moment before he looked away, shuffling towards a table in the opposite corner of the store from him. The boy hunched his shoulders and kept his head down as he looked through the records, every once in a while shooting furtive glances over his shoulder at Fenrir who was unashamedly staring at him with interest.

But the boy did nothing. After spending minutes waiting for _something_ – for a snap or rebuke or even a fucking whimper – nothing came. Fenrir let out a huff, turning back to the records, grabbing Love's self-entitled album and heading to the register. With pockets only fifty pence lighter and a record tucked under his arm, Fenrir cast one last glance at the scarred boy before exiting the shop.


	2. Chapter 2

Specific prompt used for this chapter was **20.** **morning**.

Word count: 1,444

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The one downside to his plot for world domination (or whatever the hell it is he does) is that biting and kidnapping children to raise into a cult of hatred usually results in _idiots_. That's his fault, he guesses, though he wasn't the one that originally came up with and set this plan in motion – he's just the successor after all. He's the one that's continued it though, the one responsible for it now and the werewolves it produces. And these werewolves? They're idiots. They've got their uses and sometimes they aren't completely insufferable but most of the time they're useless baboons. They might as well be inbred pugs sometimes, not great and mighty werewolves.

As when he's frustrated with his pack, he's fled to a small records shop called Hardy's in Cardiff. It's pretty early in the day for him to be there all things considered; usually he at least tries to put up with his idiots until noon but today he'd just said "fuck it" and gone out at nine in the morning. The shopkeeper had a newspaper this time rather than an old magazine and a steaming cup of coffee beside him. He glanced up, blinked at Fenrir for a moment, before going back to his reading. That's probably the most acknowledgment he's ever gotten out of the man whose name is not Hardy.

It's not fifteen minutes after he'd entered the store that the bell above the door rung and another customer stepped in; as usually the only one in the little dusty shop (besides not-Hardy), he looked up in curiosity. This time he's the one who blinks.

He recognized the boy that stepped through the door; he saw him in the store merely a few weeks before for the first time and the scars that stretched across his skin had instantly intrigued him. The boy hadn't acknowledged him beyond a couple of glances despite the way Fenrir had so blatantly stared, eyes burning with curiosity. While Fenrir had visited the shop twice since then, he hadn't seen him again but he'd thought about him. Something about the boy had struck him – not as one of those strangers whose that stuck with you but as someone _familiar_. He knew he didn't know the boy but _something_ about him…

The boy walked to the other side of the table, standing opposite of him. Like last time, his shoulders are hunched and his head is bowed. His semi-long brown hair hung in front of his face as his thin fingers danced across the edges of the records. Fenrir realized he is openly _staring_ (again) but he'd never been subtle. After a moment though, he decided he's not going to just stare.

"Morning."

The boy jumped slightly, his head snapping up to look at Fenrir. He swallowed and then a small, shy smile spread across his lips, his right hand reaching up to scratch at the back of his head.

"I—Hi—Er yes, morning," he responded, tripping over his words and causing Fenrir to raise a thick eyebrow at him. He blushed, his pale cheeks turning a bright shade of scarlet – like a strawberry. Or blood. "Sorry."

"Sorry for what?" Fenrir didn't really need to ask – he knew the boy's type. Awkward and stuttering, trying to take up as little space as possible and fly under the radar. Shy and embarrassed, unable to go ten minutes without apologising for some perceived mistake on his part. They're so fun to watch squirm.

And squirm he does, his gaze falling to the record between his fingers, his lips pulling back again into a small, nervous smile. "Just… Y'know, being a berk. Stumbling over me own tongue."

"Happens to the best of us." Well, not really – Fenrir couldn't exactly recall a time when it took him three tries just to say hello. It just something you didn't do when you had the confidence he had, which clearly the boy did not. Then again, few people had the confidence he had. Fenrir was a bit of (read: a lot of) a knob-head.

The boy seemed to know this too, if anything could be inferred from his tone and expression as he said "sure."

They lapsed into silence after that, the only sounds in the small shop being the shopkeeper turning the pages of his paper and the two flipping through the records. It wasn't as if Fenrir was at a loss for words or anything, he was just deciding how to play this. Did he ask the boy's name? Did he ask about the scars? Did he let him go? It all depended on the results that he wanted and Fenrir wasn't quite sure what those were.

Did he just want to know the story behind the scars? How they were such a stark contrast with the boy's shy and demure demeanor? It could easily be mundane – some sort of an accident, maybe even a mugging gone wrong. The story could very well be a disappointment; not everyone lived the violently exciting life of a werewolf after all. But then what if he just let him go, his curiosity forever unquenched? Would it itch at him, gnaw and nag until he hunted him down to find out the answer? Fenrir did have a habit of taking extreme actions in the face of small consequences. And what if the story behind the scars was actually interesting? What did he do then? It would just be a story after all, unless he wanted something further from him. Looking his slender figure up and down – because even under the over-sized duffel coat Fenrir could tell that the boy was hardly more than skin and bones – he couldn't say that he'd be worth much. If he bit him (because that was what Fenrir's thought process always jumped to), he doubted the boy would survive. But there could be other uses for him… Some people liked to claim his tastes ran 'young' but the truth was that he liked them _weak_. He liked to be able to control them, to overpower them. This boy would hardly be a match for him _and_ he was rather aesthetically pleasing. Then there'd be the question of whether the boy was even bent but what was one more question to the ever-growing pile? He'd be a fun possession.

Deciding on his course of action, Fenrir stopped distractedly flipping through the records and looked up at the boy. "So what's your name?"

He wasn't at all surprised when the boy startled… _again_. The boy recovered in a second though and gave Fenrir another small smile. "You can call me John I s'pose."

"John? That's awfully boring."

'John' chuckled at that. "Better than my actual name – bloody hate it." And there was another story to ask about; yes, this boy had piqued his curiosity and he was going to figure him out, break him apart like some sort of block puzzle and leave him in pieces (maybe even literally).

"It has to better than John though," he replied, looking at him expectantly. 'John', however, just shook his head, his gaze on the table. "You can tell me, y'know. I've got a strange name myself – Fenrir Greyback."

This caused the boy to pause at which Fenrir grinned – _got you_. Except no; the boy just looked up with a grin of his own. "'Fraid Mr Fenrir Greyback that you'll just have to call me John." Playing hard to get… Fenrir liked that. The chase was always so fun.

"Do your friends call you John as well?"

'John' thought about it for a moment before speaking; "no, they don't. They don't call me by my first name but they call me something else."

"Then what's that?"

"What my friends call me; we're not friends."

And _that_ caught Fenrir off-guard; he was quick to recover, his gaze intensely scrutinizing the boy, his lips pulled back in his trademark predatory grin.

"Is that a challenge?"

The boy shrugged but the coy grin on his lips said all that needed to be said. It was a challenge; it was an _invitation_. Oh he'd be a fun one to chase after, to figure out and come to know inside and out. Fenrir was a curious man; if he'd lived a different life, perhaps he'd have been a scholar rather than a murderer. This was his life though and the curiosities he chased it in were _people_ – ones he could possess, ones with scars, ones that stuttered over a hello, ones that slyly challenged him. Ones like 'John'.

He heard the rustle of newspaper as the shopkeeper turn the page, muttering to himself. "Fucking queers."


	3. Chapter 3

Specific prompt used for this chapter was **88\. Oppose**.

Word count: 737

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"You've got that look on your face."

The words are said in a stern tone of voice, the expression the woman who said them wore equally stern. Her lips were pursed and her arms were crossed over her chest, brown eyes narrowed as she glared at Fenrir. There was a striking similarity between her and Fenrir; they had the same dark hair, bushy eyebrows, and stocky build. There was one glaring difference though – she scowled and he grinned.

"What look?" Fenrir asked in a mocking tone. He knew what she meant, what expression she was referring to. It was the one where he looked smug (more so than usual) and his lips curled into a Cheshire Cat-esque grin. It was the expression of the cat who'd caught the canary… Or, perhaps, the wolf who'd caught the rabbit.

"You know the one I'm talking about." She didn't play his games, fall into his traps, or rise to his baits. Unlike most of the people he spoke to on a daily basis, she wasn't an imbecile; she was also one of the few that had the audacity to oppose him.

Fenrir rolled his eyes at her. "So what?" he asked, stepping closer. While she was taller than the average woman he still managed to tower over her, though she didn't let that intimidate her. Her eyes merely moved to follow his actions, her expression unchanging. "So what if I'm feeling good for once? So what if I'm grinning? Who made you my keeper? 'Cause I know it wasn't dad nor me and there isn't anyone else with that level of authority."

"Someone's got to keep you in check," she snapped. "You'll run everything father worked for into the ground if I don't – let everything burn while you sit back and drink a beer, I'm sure."

"Still bitter the old coot left me in charge?" As if he had to ask. He'd purposely brought up the fact she wasn't above him – that was the only button of hers he'd managed to find over the years and he would press it until it broke. She wasn't stupid but she also wasn't much fun either. "Lupa, Lupa, Lupa…"

She shook her head, refusing to answer the question and instead choosing to change the subject; "what're you up to? Because I know you're up to something."

"Aren't I always up to something?"

Lupa snorted at that. "Can't disagree with you there."

"Glad we're on the same page."

For a few seconds they lapsed into silence before Lupa growled. It came from deep within her throat and clearly conveyed her frustration. "Stop changing the subject. What the hell are you up to so I can do some disaster-proofing before then."

"Why do you think this is going end in disaster? O ye, of little faith…"

Lupa stepped back, throwing her hands up in the air in surrender. She closed her eyes as she took in a sharp inhale before opening them again and glaring at Fenrir again.

"Because everything you do ends in disaster. It's in your name even – Fenrisúlfr: the wolf that devours the world," she said heatedly. She reigned herself in before speaking again. "I know you. I know what you do. You're my half-brother and I've known you to always bring chaos wherever you go."

He sighed, cocking his head to the side as he shot her an incredulous look. "Two things I want to say to that: first, I think you might be a bit wrong on the mythology there and second, you're being a bit dramatic."

"Just tell me what the hell you're up to."

Fenrir shook his head. "Fine. I'm not up to anything that involves the pack. I met someone."

She just stared at him.

"You _met_ someone? That is the worst lie you have ever told."

He shrugged; "don't believe me if you don't want to but it's the truth. I'm not saying I'm in love. I'm just… curious. I'm just having a little fun. He's not a werewolf and not even a wizard. He's a tasty looking bit of prey I found that now I'm chasing. That's all it is. I've done it before as I'm sure you remember."

Lupa narrowed her eyes at him, staring at him for a few moments before giving a single nod. "Fine." She paused, then snorted. "Even sounds like a better idea than those damn Death Eaters."

Fenrir grinned.


End file.
